Digital data storage devices are used to store and retrieve large amounts of user data in a fast and efficient manner. A typical data storage device uses an actuator assembly to support an array of vertically aligned data transducing heads adjacent recording surfaces in a disc stack.
The disc stack is rotated at a relatively high rotational velocity by a spindle motor. An actuator motor (such as a voice coil motor, VCM) pivots the actuator assembly to align the transducers with data tracks defined on the recording surfaces to write data to the tracks and retrieve previously written data from the tracks. The heads are typically hydrodynamically supported adjacent the recording surfaces by fluidic currents established by rotation of the disc stack.
A continuing trend in the industry is to provide successive generations of data storage devices with smaller sizes and increased storage capacities and data transfer rates. There is therefore a continued need for improvements in the manner in which heads are positionally controlled, both during operation and when the device is deactivated. It is to such improvements that the claimed invention is generally directed.